Sonic Adventure 2: Redacted
by SallysFunnyKiss
Summary: A retelling of Sonic Adventure 2 in an effort to fill in plot holes, flesh out characters, and explain the unexplained. As the mysteries of the ARK unfold, Sonic finds himself struggling with Tails' new-found independence, Knuckles resists the wiles of a wicked temptress, Eggman discovers the family he never knew, and Shadow vows to avenge the one he loved more than anything.


Before I begin, I'd like to start this party off right with a few words.

… Alright, more than just a few words.

I would like to thank those of you who have followed me from the very beginning, and that is why with a very heavy heart I have to say that my most popular fic, Shadow the Hedgehog 2: the Revenge of Maria, will unfortunately be abandoned. After a while, I ended up writing myself into a corner and could not figure out a way to finish it as I had intended from the start.

This new story is something that I have been planning and wanting to do for a few years now. To me, being able to leave a plot up to different interpretations is one of the best things good writing is capable of. I'm not saying that the plot of Sonic Adventure 2 is flawless- in fact, it's very far from that. But over the years it has got me thinking- the game actually provides Eggman's motivation throughout the franchise, though it is never outright stated anywhere. Doing some research on the game, global politics, and the origin of the name "Robotnik" has led me to a very interesting conclusion that I would like to share. Yes, Robotnik is an actual name- a name that would have carried heavy social stigma fifty years prior to the year Sonic Adventure 2 was released. Additionally, studying Anatomy in-depth has allowed me to actually hypothesize what NIDS would really be and the devastating symptoms that would come with it.

This fic will be my interpretation of the plot of Sonic Adventure 2- an attempt to fill in plot holes and flesh out back-stories and character interactions. The only characters of significance will be those who actually appeared in the game (and any games that played a large part in deciphering what it all means). No spin-off characters of any kind will appear; no fan characters will appear (because the whole fan character fic thing bugs me, it would add nothing to the plot, and would just completely ruin the point to begin with). Other characters may be mentioned, but only if extremely relevant. This whole interpretation is based on the assumption that the events of the game happened in 2001 when the game was released. I am going to completely disregard any spin-off canon as well (Archie, X, etc.), as none of those are canon to the main series, anyway. This is just what I have taken away from the game after playing it to pieces year after year.

Additionally, I will present levels out of the order that they actually appear in the game- i.e., Wild Canyon BEFORE City Escape. If you would like to argue with me on where they take place in the story, I'm all ears and ready to back up my claims on why they make sense where I put them. Send your complaints and hate mail to my PM inbox, and I will address them when I can. Everything is planned out and ready to go; I just need to flesh them out a little more and put them in full writing.

Anywho, thank you for taking the time to read my ridiculously long-winded introduction to my even longer personal interpretation of an almost fifteen year old game. I will update as often as I can- I promise.

Stay as cool as you are,

SallysFunnyKiss

* * *

**PROLOGUE**

"Sure this is the place?"

"Yep! And it looks even better than it did in the ad!"

Sonic and Tails stood in awe of their new vacation home- a nifty little beach shack on the coast of Station Square. After the literal Chaos of the past few weeks, they could finally relax and enjoy themselves without being pestered by the city about more clean-up efforts after the flood. Skyscrapers had been rebuilt, the missing had been found, and the hedgehog and fox were now allowed to continue on with their adventures.

Sonic strode forward and rested his gloved hand on the smooth, treated wood and admired his surroundings. Being the proverbial drifter that he was, he was not one for staying in one place and felt a little uneasy.

"Are you sure it's such a good idea to have a permanent address?" he asked Tails cautiously.

"We will be just fine," Tails said, blowing off Sonic's unfounded worries. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Well the last time I stayed in an actual house, Eggman broke in, swiped my sneakers while I was sleepin', and made me go through some weird-ass mazes at a snail's pace just to get 'em back."

"I had forgotten about that."

"Believe me, everyone involved wishes that they could."

"I'm sure we will be safe here," Tails sighed. "Besides, it isn't like too many outsiders would know where we are."

"True..."

"Wait a sec- why did Eggman go to all that trouble just to take your shoes? Why didn't he just kill you while you were asleep or on the toilet or something?"

"I'll never know. Really, it's best not to think about it."

"But-"

"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Sonic whispered, clasping his hand across Tails' big mouth.

"Mmmmhmhmh mhmhmhmmmmmhm!" Tails struggled against his friend's force.

"Are you ever gonna question the logic of this universe again?" Sonic snapped.

"Mmmm mmmm," Tails shook his head.

"Good," the hedgehog smiled, letting Tails go and opening the door to their new little house.

With four bedrooms and two bathrooms, their new quaint little three-story house was situated near the beach with a section of the beach inside it so they could play on the beach even on the darkest and stormiest of nights. The top floor was mostly a deck that they could sit out on and ponder their existence while watching the sun set, and the kitchen was large enough to host legendary parties that would end in any number of poor life choices. Of course, Tails wasn't as concerned about those things as Sonic- he was much more excited about the expansive basement that somehow existed in a house built entirely on sand. Tails didn't think about that too much, and neither should you- after all, if young Fortinbras and his army could march from Poland to Denmark, anything was possible.

**AN: Hamlet reference. Yaaaaaaaay. /AN**

This new basement would serve as his workshop and was large enough to construct whatever he wished, barring a space colony. Just thinking about all the scientific breakthroughs that could occur inside set his sweet little fox-y heart ablaze with yearning and nerdy lust. The future was full of possibilities- in this strange year of 2001, one could carry hundreds of songs with them in their pocket, download a ridiculous amount of porn via dial-up, and turn on Cartoon Network and see _cartoons_. What would the future bring? Widespread portable computers with a user interface revolving around touchscreens? Printable, functioning organs? A really awesome band formed by 75% of the members of Creed?

"T-Tails?" Sonic waved his hand in front of the little fox's eyes, trying to get his attention. He seemed to be off in his own little world. "TAILS!" Sonic shouted, shaking his friend violently. Tails snapped out of his thoughts. "There you are, lil' bro. I was worried 'bout you for a second there."

"I'm okay!" Tails chuckled. "I was just thinking about something."

"What happened? Did Tikal need to spout some exposition?"

"Not at all. Don't worry about it."

Sonic smiled, though he was still worried about Tails. The poor little guy worked so hard that it was hard to imagine him _not _going insane, and with his new "confidence" that he was going on about so much lately Sonic didn't know what to do and how to be there for him. Since the Chaos incident, Tails had begun to refuse any help from Sonic. It had gotten to the point where Tails wouldn't even allow him to pour him a glass of water. Unsure what to think of all of this "independence", Sonic had so much time left on his hands that he had taken to doing endorsement deals in order to make some extra cash and stroke his ego.

The most recent company he had been pimping, Soap, had given him a custom-made pair of shoes inspired by his usual sneakers. What made them special was a plastic concavity in the sole that allowed the wearer to grind on various objects such as pipes, handrails, and the occasional solid and sturdy vine. This custom version of the company's Scorcher/Nitro shoes were engineered to reduce friction in his feet and allowed Sonic to run at his full potential, just as his usual pair did. The consumer models CHAOS_6028 and CHAOS_6029 were just basic, run of the mill Soap shoes based on Sonic's nifty set.

**AN: I didn't know that there was so much information on the Sonic News Network on Soap shoes. You really do learn something new every day. Nerds. /AN**

The shoes fit comfortably and-

**AN: I know, pot calling the kettle black. I'm sorry. /AN**

really allowed for many more moves in Sonic's repertoire. He couldn't wait to try out this new fad, but he needed to settle into the beach house first just in case there was an accident and the hospital needed a billing address.

**AN: Sonic's too cool for insurance. /AN**

"So," Sonic asked casually, "when do we move in?"

"Now!"

"Wait- seriously?"

"Yep. The paperwork went through this morning. And I did it aaaaaaall by myself!" Tails grinned cheerfully. Sonic applauded sweetly. "Now, if we could just plan how we're going to set everything up..."

* * *

Far, far away in a distant laboratory _also_ built in sand, Dr. Ivo "the Eggman" Robotnik was sitting at his computer typing away in his new base in the Great Pyramids of Not-Egypt, relatively close to the Ancient Ruins and kept safe by his anti-archeologist security system that vaporized any intruders wearing sensible khaki shorts and mesh hats, this was the perfect place to dream up his nefarious schemes. This time around, however, was personal- he had gotten wind of some secret files within the Guardian Unit of Nations that contained the personal notes and journal entries of his long-dead grandfather, Professor Gerald Robotnik.

It was hard for him to imagine reading actual documents that had been penned by the one and only man that had inspired him to pursue science, particularly the science of destruction. All he really knew about him was that he had a job working for the military developing weapons of mass destruction, but he and everyone else aboard the experimental space colony he was stationed on perished due to what was simply called a "terrible accident". Though not particularly interested in how his grandfather and his colleagues died, he was _very_ interested in what his grandfather had spent years developing and how far he had gotten. His grandfather was said to be a great man- a well respected and esteemed scientist and professor in his home country who was brought over in his later years to put his talents to use for the military. Surely a man of his regard would have created something worthy of Eggman's beady eyes.

Eggman had spent the better part of the past two weeks trying to hack into GUN's database and seemed to have hit a dead end. No matter what he tried, nothing seemed to get past their security.

"I can't believe that this dinky little military unit could foil even _I_," Eggman growled.

**AN: Something I've always found really funny is when people try to sound "smart" by replacing all instances of 'me' in their everyday speech with 'I'. Since there are certain times to use each one, using 'I' (like in the example above, where it is used _incorrectly_) in order to sound intelligent just cracks me up. In fact, I'm aiming for Tails to be the only one to use grammar correctly in this, as the only really intelligent one in the bunch is he. He has the attention span and capacity to sit and study something like that in-depth and on his own time. For the most part, he'll just sound like a talking Honors English essay that uses contractions when the full words would just sound weird. /AN**

He typed furiously, hoping to find some promising little hole in the system. He had gone through his standard bag of tricks over a week ago and had now reached the point of desperation. His mind reeling, he typed random snippets of code into his reliable hacking program just to see if they would do anything. Before long, red error lines appeared absolutely everywhere, indicating that he had done more harm to his efforts than good.

Miserable, he slammed his head down on his keyboard. The plastic-y crunch, accompanied by several words that would make even the most hardened and grizzled of sailors blush, broke the empty silence in the well-hidden computer room. Thankfully he was not wearing his usual spectacles and did not experience the searing pain of broken lenses piercing his eyes and skin, but did experience what it is like to surrender completely to utter exhaustion and pass out instantly. The keys dug deeply into his skin and would leave hilarious little squares imprinted all over his greasy forehead, but he was in no mood to care and was too incapacitated to really do anything about it. Besides, that was the least of his problems- he smelled like a pack of wet dogs and the sweat that had accumulated in his fatty skin folds seemed to foster some sort of awful bacterial paradise. His breath was rancid, he seemed to have no concept of deodorant, and only called himself a "feminist" as a way to attract the ladies.

**AN: Eggman's bio in the manual to Sonic Heroes seriously states that he is a self-proclaimed feminist. The moooooore you knooooooow! /AN**

The pressure against the keys led to a sporadic array of random letters and characters pooling into his compiler and creating a mindless sea of nonsense. However, because of some strange coincidence, or maybe because the author didn't know nearly as much about hacking as she would like in order to come up with a clever solution, after nearly four hours a set of letters read "MARIA" in a diagonal line and lit up brightly in red. A pleasant ping! sound alerted Eggman of his success and somehow nudged him awake.

"Wha-wha-what?" he mumbled drowsily, his eyes crusty with sleep and a puddle of drool laying stagnant where his chin had rested on the desk. He coughed powerfully, carelessly wiped the saliva from his chin and stared at his monitor.

"A-are you _serious_?" he bellowed, twisting his thick, greasy mustache between his thumb and index finger. "Maria... Maria? Why would that have been the trigger...?"

Eggman knew nothing of a "Maria". Was she a person? Did she have something to do with Professor Gerald? A colleague, perhaps- or maybe even a lover...?

"Why not _both_?" Eggman said aloud to no one in particular, trying to ensure that he did not come off as sexist. Nonetheless, he had finally found what he had needed- a large folder entitled "GROBOTNIK" had opened, containing a plethora of information. "Now to download..." he mumbled, looking for a way to save the information to his hard drive.

"YES!" he shouted after clicking on "save as...". The file took several minutes to download, but it was well worth the wait. "Now let's see what my dear old grandfath- hmmm?" He stopped, noticing that the folder was a .zip file, and right-clicked on the icon to extract its contents.

"'Windows cannot extract 'GROBOTNIK . zip' because compatible software cannot be _found_...?'" he read carefully. "That's non_sens_ical- why the _hell _would a computer come without...?" He typed quickly into the search box that displayed the contents of the hard drive, but found nothing that could help him.

**AN: True story. /AN**

"Dammit," he growled as he searched the Internet for WinRar or something of that nature. However, Internet Explorer made sure to take as much time as possible to start, load, and generally function, just as it always has.

* * *

Somewhere else, in an island in the sky, lay an echidna that was rougher than the rest of them- the best of them, and tougher than leather. We'll just call him Knuckles, and he wants it to be known that unlike Sonic, he did not chuckle; he'd rather flex his muscles. Snoozing against the side of the Master Emerald and dreaming about a magical grapevine that curled around the shrine and grew the plumpest grapes he had ever seen, he felt completely at ease.

His beloved had been recovering from her accident a few weeks prior, but he had not yet gotten the chance to make Eggman pay for what he had done to her. Shattering the Master Emerald was not to be taken lightly, and after long, personal deliberation with himself he had decided that the best course of action was to wait- after all, revenge _was _a dish best served cold.

… or so he had heard. He hadn't really figured out what that actually meant until very recently. There was no reason to rush. He had promised his darling that he would make that rounded and grotesque man suffer as she had.

* * *

A few hours later in the same general area as Sonic and Tails' new piece of beach-front property, Rouge had been called in by her superior for an assignment. This was her fifth year working for GUN's special forces, and it was hard to believe that so much time had passed since she was first arrested.

That whole episode was an embarrassment, even if it truly was a blessing in disguise. A lady of _her_ class taken in like a common criminal- and only for a small handful of shiny trinkets? A real connoisseur of fine gems and rarities like her should have been caught with something of _much_ higher quality. It was just _shameful!_ In fact, it was hard to believe that they were willing to recruit her after such an amateur-ish mistake! Tripping a standard alarm system- how _foolish_!

Rouge tapped her foot impatiently on the polished vinyl floors that were made to give the appearance of wood. _What is taking him so long?_ she thought irritably. _I was instructed to be here at three sharp! _Looking to the name-tag that was affixed to the door, she was surprised that such an unprofessional man should be the head of such an organization. She sighed and fought the urge to slump down on the floor dramatically with some story about how she was just so _very_ shocked that an expert like her would be treated in such a way by her own employer.

"If I have to sit out here waiting on him and his business any longer, I'll tell him that he can shove this job right up his-"

"Rouge?" An assistant to the Commander had opened the door. "Oh!" he grinned., "There you are!" Rouge masked her annoyance with a small smile and stepped forward. "We had thought that you had gone to play hooky on your Big Fifth."

"Well, a lady in this line of work _does_ need a cocktail or two!" she joked, her smile fading. "Why did you think I was not here?"

"Well, the office door was open..."

**AN: True story... kind of. I had gone to a local museum as part of a job shadowing program and was told to show up at around nine in the morning, and I got there at about eight or so to get to know who I would be following all day. The door marked "ENTRANCE" was locked, so I sat down on the almost icy steps in the freezing weather and waited. And waited. When the other person assigned to the same job shadow came about half an hour later... and tried the door beside it. It opened instantly. /AN**

"Oh! I- I was- um... I knew! I knew, I just had to-"

"It's fine- you made it, and that's all we could ask for."

"Ummmm... excuse me?"

"I see you haven't attended any of the team-building meetings."

"Er, no. No I have not."

"We would love for you to join-"

"No," Rouge interjected, trying to step around him and get into the door, "No no no! I'm good. I'll just be on my way..." she struggled, making desperate eye contact with the Commander, who could barely stifle his laughter.

"That's enough, Johnson," the Commander called. "This is a fairly important assignment." Johnson stepped back, allowing Rouge to squeeze through.

"So," Rouge asked, dusting herself off. "What is this all abou-" She turned around to see Johnson still standing at the door, staring creepily at her backside. "Allllllrighty then, Mr. Furry. Why don't you just scurry off to your deviantART account and keep your depraved pleasures to yourself?"

"That's enough, Johnson," the Commander sighed irritably. "I thought this was a _respectable_ organization."

"That slut was asking for it!"

"Ex-CUUUUSE ME?" Rouge jumped up and grabbed Johnson's throat, shoving him up against the wall. "I dress the way I do because _I_ _choose_ _to_," she growled.

"But- *cough* you're a fictional- ch-charactAGH!"

"JOHNSON! ROUGE! THAT IS _ENOUGH!"_

"_Aaaaaand? _What is your _point_?" Rouge added her other hand and squeezed harder.

"Y-ou you were *cough* de-designed by *HACK* someone th-th_aaaaat_..." Johnson desperately reached for his throat, trembling in fear.

"AGENT ROUGE- THAT WAS AN ORDER!" Rouge reluctantly let go, but the death glare in her eyes remained. Agent Johnson fell to the floor, hesitantly rubbing his bruised windpipe and looking up in fear. "May I remind you that direct attacks against other agents, be they verbal or physical, are grounds for _expulsion_?"

"You expect me to just stand here and be _insulted_ in such a way? Shame on _both_ of you!" Rouge could barely contain her anger. The Commander sighed in defeat. He was getting far too old for this nonsense.

"I suppose that Agent Johnson _was_ the instigator..."

"But Sir! You can't be serious-"

"I can be," he replied, hitting the intercom switch. "Suzanne, kindly escort Agent Johnson to the infirmary to examine his injuries." Johnson sighed with relief. "And be sure that his actions end up on his record."

"B-but-"

"Don't b-but me, Johnson. This section has gone on long enough, and we need to get the main plot going." The door swung open, revealing a pair of burly security guards that grabbed the blubbering Agent Johnson and dragged him away kicking and screaming about double standards and pervy character designers.

"Finally," Rouge muttered under her breath.

"Now, if we can finally get this show on the road, I suppose you are well aware of today's date?"

"Of course. Today is the awful anniversary of the day a fine, classy lady was horribly taken into custody by the government for adding to her jewelry collection."

"We needed a sly thief of your caliber for our ranks."

"I _detest_ that term. I prefer 'treasure hunter.'"

"ANYWAY, I decided that I would assign you to your most challenging mission yet for your Big Fifth. What we are looking for is not your standard haul- we are looking for a man."

"Mmmhmmmmmm..." Rouge's eyes lit up with interest. "What is he like? Is he _strong_ and _handsome_? _Big _and _tall_?"

"Well... Not particularly. We're looking for this man," the Commander stated, holding up a file titled "Robotnik, Ivo E." and revealing a grainy newspaper clipping from the ancient monster-flood of a few weeks ago showing a greasy older man with an unspeakably large mustache and a bald head grinning from ear to ear.

"Ewwww..." Rouge spat. "You want me to work my magic on _that_?"

"No no- not at all. We just want you to follow him and bring us as much information on him as you can. He was the cause of the Chaos incident and we have a hunch that he is currently working on something much more drastic." Rouge was looking down, admiring the bright white of her gloves.

"It seems that you finally want me to get involved in your whole 'saving the world' business," she smiled, looking up. "Fine. But what's in it for me?"

"We will look the other way while you work. You may take as you wish as long as it doesn't interfere with anything."

"That's just what I wanted to hear. After all, the best presents are the ones you can pick out yourself." She grabbed the file and turned to leave.

"We will send you more information as it comes through in order to aid you," he called after her as she slammed the door. He sighed with frustration. She may not be the most orthodox, but she was the best chance that they had.

* * *

A few days later Tails was down in his basement, polishing his newly built plane/mech walker and whistling happily to himself. His basement lab did not have all of the nifty gadgets that the one in the Mystic Ruins had, which is why this new project had taken a few hours longer than expected, but he managed to pull through regardless.

He stepped back and admired his new creation. Honestly, applying the paint and decals had taken longer than the actual assembly. Those custom-made decals were so hard to put on without ripping. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and ran upstairs to get Sonic.

"... just _fantastic_!" Sonic gushed over the telephone, twisting the coiled cord around his fingers. "I can't get over- uh huh. Yeah." He looked up and acknowledged Tails with a nod, mouthing _"gimme just a sec." _Tails slumped down on the couch and swung his legs absentmindedly. "Well, no I haven't exactly- I just haven't had the time to try it. I'll tell ya what- I'll find some time to do it this week. I'll find a nice hill just covered in handrails and grind right down 'em. Uh huh. Sure, thanks. Catch ya later."

"What was that about?" Tails asked as Sonic hung up the phone.

"Oh- that? The Soap guys wanted to know what I thought about the shoes. They were kinda upset that I hadn't really tried grindin' with 'em yet."

"Yeah, why haven't you? That sort of thing seems right up your alley."

"I've just been too busy."

"Doing what? _Sleeping?_" Tails giggled.

"It takes up a lot of my time!" Sonic said, laughing along.

"Wait- you aren't _scared_ of it, are you?" Sonic stared back at his fluffy little friend in bewilderment.

"I've run across water even though I can't swim! I ran around inside a giant water monster and killed it by jumpin' out of its head!" Tails laughed even harder, causing Sonic to smile once more. "I- I flew through space without a helmet to chase down Eggman! I've fallen from a spaceship and landed without a scratch! _TWICE!_

**AN: Wait- does that thing Eggman had chained to Little Planet count as a spaceship? Oh, close enough; you see my point. /AN**

I've fought monsters and robots of every shape and size, and I have a feeling I'll be doin' that for the rest of my life! You sayin' I'm too scared to grind down a railing? _You, _sir, don't seem to know who you're talkin' to!" Tails collapsed on the floor in a fit of giggles.

"I know I know!" Tails cried, trying to regain composure. "I was there- well, most of those times, anyway. I was just teasing you!"

"Are you sure?" Sonic chided, lightly punching Tails in the shoulder. "Because it sounded like my lil' bro was doubtin' me!"

"Of course not!"

"Ooookaaaaay..." Sonic smiled. "So, whatcha need?"

"Oh! I gotta show you something!" Tails leaped up and pulled Sonic along.

"Is it that thingy you're takin' to NerdFest '01?"

"If you mean the _National Electronics Showcase_, then yes," Tails scoffed. "C'mon! For the fastest thing alive, you sure do have lead feet!"

"I'm tryin' not to hurt you, lil' guy. I can't really hold someone's hand and run without ripping their arm from... that... place where the arm... goes." Tails sighed, trying to stifle his laugh.

"Al_right_, but that doesn't mean that you need to drag your feet!"

The two finally made it downstairs within the space of the next century, and Tails sprung up to sit in his new creation.

"Oooooh, I see..." Sonic said grandly. "It's another lil' plane."

"It's not _just_ another plane," Tails scoffed before he pressed a sequence of buttons, causing the cockpit to rise and expose leg-like appendages. The wings of the plane folded in as Sonic strode forward in awe.

"Phew! That's _tight!_" Sonic exclaimed in charmingly dated slang.

**AN: I think that's part of the reason why I love these games so much, particularly this one. AWESOME! TIGHT! RADICAAAAAAAL! /AN**

Tails blushed under the bright white fur of his muzzle, happy for Sonic's approval. Encouraged, he grasped the controls and moved his mech-walker backwards a few steps, causing Sonic to somersault-jump backwards in surprise with a loud "buooop!".

"You like?" Tails called down with a smile.

"Of course I do! Man, with this thing you'll win for sure!"

"I-it's not a competition, but thanks!"

"It's _not?_ What's the fun in _that?_"

"What are you talking about?" Tails laughed. "You get to look at all the cool stuff that people are developing!"

"I _guess_. How long are ya gonna be gone?"

"A few days," Tails answered, switching the mech-walker back into plane-mode. "I leave tomorrow."

"I hope you have a good time. Are you sure you don't need me to go with you?"

"Of course I'm sure- why would I?"

"Well, I guess I just-"

"You just what?" Tails asked, slightly frustrated. "You just thought that I won't be able to do this on my own? I'm not a little kid anymore!"

"I suppose..."

"Sonic I'll be _fine_." Irritated, Tails hopped out of the mech and went to take a walk on the beach to cool down.

"T-tails? Tails, wait-" Sonic hadn't known what he had done; he just wanted to make sure that Tails would be completely safe.

"NO." Tails called down from the top of the staircase. He slammed the door behind himself, fighting tears. Why couldn't Sonic understand?

* * *

Back at his Pyramid Base, Eggman had _finally_ managed to search for and download a reliable program to unzip the file that contained the secrets of his grandfather. The files filled up his desktop quickly, spreading out across the screen.

"Now, where to start..." Eggman muttered under his breath. "Let's see- the last journal entry is dated August twenty-third, nineteen fifty-one. I suppose I could start there."

_I cannot describe the anguish I feel. She is gone. Everyone is gone. And for what? Yes, my methods were not the cleanest, but I did what I had to. Three years of progress- gone._

"Progress? What sort of progress, and progress on what, my dear dziadek? And just who is gone?"

**AN: Dziadek is Polish for "grandfather". /AN**

_Damn it all. My execution is tomorrow morning at eight. Until then, I can only wait for the sweet release of death and the chance to see my ukochana wnuczka once more._

**AN: It means "darling granddaughter". Polish doesn't seem like a very pretty language, but hey. /AN**

"He had a granddaughter? I didn't have any siblings..." Eggman pondered. "This was written almost five years after I was born, and my mother was fairly young when she gave birth to yours truly. And if this is true, then the demise of the ARK was not what it had seemed. Why was he to be executed?"

_At least she is with her parents. I don't believe she knew much about what was going on back in our home country, or that they had perished from it._

"Wait- my parents were alive well into my thirties, until they had outlived their usefulness, of course. But I do remember my father mentioning that he had had a sister back in eastern Europe where our family is from. Perhaps they had a daughter...?" Eggman looked down at his feet, thinking back to his family tree. "My grandfather had left for the ARK when I was around two, and my mother had told me that he had been working for the government. It wasn't until I was almost finished with my schooling that my father had told me that he had been developing weapons. But why would he bring his granddaughter along, and why hadn't I heard about her before? And more importantly, why didn't _I_ get to go?!"

_I'm sorry I have failed you, Maria. My only hope is that Project Shadow will be able to carry out my wishes when I am gone._

"Maria? The exact same as the passcode! _She_ must have been the granddaughter- my cousin, in fact. But wait- what is this Project Shadow? I must investigate this further..."

_I had heard that Project Shadow had been stored somewhere in a facility that those double-crossers at G.U.N. had built on an island while Maria and I were on the ARK. Of course those inbred buffoons not only killed almost a hundred scientists and their families, but had the gall to use the efforts of my blood, sweat, and tears for themselves, anyway! Damn it all!_

Eggman did not know what to think of all of this information. His grandfather, cousin, and all those working there had been killed by those they had worked for and trusted. The only clear idea that crossed his mind was to locate this island and discover what was inside...


End file.
